Square Dance History Project
The rich story of North American square dance finally has a home in the digital age.

Browse Items (439 total)

  • Temporal Coverage is exactly "2000 -"
Sound

Classic Dances of 1960

This recording comes from the 2001 CALLERLAB convention. (The audio recording is alsoavailable online here.)Jim Mayo, the CALLERLAB President at that time, was the MC, and he explains the start of the… View item
Document

Mal Hayden - Seacoast Demonstration - analysis of dances and tunes

This is a detailed look at the dances, figures, and tunes used in the Seacoast Demonstration called by Mal Hayden. View item
Document

Camp Becket - child's view of square dance camp

Camp Becket in western Massachusetts was the regular venue for square dance camps. Caller Herbie Gaudreau, who named many of his dances for locations in his dance universe, created the Becket Reel.… View item
Website

Kitty Keller - Social Dance History

This is a series of six edited videos, selections from a 90-minute interview with social dance historian Kate Van Winkle Keller. She is a specialist in dances of the 18th century, and here she trace… View item
Document

Square Dance—Houston Style

This article, from Houston History magazine, offers a popular overview of square dance history in that region from the 1940s into the 21st century. The author was , with her husband, president of the… View item
Document

The Saturday Square Dance and Fish Fry in Dogtown

Cultural historian and old-time fiddler Linda L. Henry has done extensive research into the history of black string band music and dance in Warren County, Tennessee, halfway between Nashville and… View item
Document

Square Dance Calling: The African-American Connection

In an early and abbreviated form, this paper outlines the thesis that Jamison put forward at length in his later book,Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics, which looks at the pivotal role played by… View item
Moving Image

How Squares Evolved – Tony Parkes

Dance caller and historian Tony Parkes leads a workshop on how square dancing changed from traditional forms to modern squares as found in MWSD clubs. He starts by looking at "swoopies," circular… View item
Website

Explaining Traditional Squares and Contras to MWSD folks

This website is an effort by Clark Baker—a MWSD caller who also enjoys traditional contras and squares—to explain those more traditional forms to modern square dancers. Clark's essay begins: "Modern… View item
Moving Image

Clark Baker - traditional and modern

In this fifth and final video in this series, Clark Baker looks at two related kinds of dancing and explains the attraction of each: MWSD squares, especially in the Challenge program, on one side, and… View item
Moving Image

Clark Baker - MWSD & music

Many traditional square dancers look at videos of MWSD and see a lot of stop-and-go rather than continuous motion; this is often termed "puzzle solving set to music." Clark reminds the viewer that in… View item
Moving Image

Clark Baker - Calls and Concepts

In this third video in the series, Clark explains the difference between square dance "calls" and "concepts" and notes that "concepts are what make Advanced and especially… View item